He briefly held a seat in Parliament until last May’s orange wave swept him out of his Montreal riding. Until a replacement riding opens up, Paillé will be leading the Bloc from the spectators’ gallery of the House of Commons.

By the time a Quebec seat does become vacant though, he might no longer be the only federal leader looking to fill the vacancy.

On Friday, NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp announced that, if selected in March, he would seek a seat in his native province of Quebec.

Under any scenario, a Topp bid in Quebec would be a huge gamble.

The NDP scored some big local victories in the province last May but that does not make any of its seats safe.

There is not even a guarantee that Outremont — the only Quebec riding with a short history of repeat New Democrat victories — would remain in the party fold if MP Thomas Mulcair was to bow out.

To put it mildly, Topp’s Quebec profile is a work in progress. In a byelection held in 2012, there would be within the sovereignty movement plenty of potential prominent candidates liable to give him the fight of his short life in politics. As of the weekend their ranks include the new Bloc leader.

A frontal Paillé/Topp collision might yet not happen.

Topp could lose the leadership vote and decide that his talents are better suited for the party’s backrooms.

If he wins, the NDP and the Bloc might come to an agreement to give each other’s leaders a byelection pass. But how each leader would explain such an arrangement to his supporters is hard to fathom.

Paillé is in no hurry to re-enter the Commons.

Since it has lost its official status in the House, the Bloc has only a fraction of its former presence on Parliament Hill. For a leader tasked with rebuilding a party from the bottom up, expanding a lot of energy on a stage that offers precious little visibility will not be a priority.

While he would certainly quarrel with that depiction, Paillé is really more of a caretaker leader than a master of his party’s destiny — at least for now.

A Quebec election is widely expected to take place next year and the future of the Bloc will largely ride on the performance of the Parti Québécois in the provincial vote.

If the PQ does as poorly as the polls currently suggest, Paillé could end up winding down the Bloc’s affairs once its per-vote subsidies run out in a couple of years.

The NDP on the other hand needs its leader to be in the Commons sooner rather than later — not only to safeguard its Quebec holdings but also to keep the Liberals at bay across the country.

If Topp wins the leadership, his first order of business will be to win a Quebec seat. Paillé’s first task will be to do all that he can — personally or by proxy — to make that impossible.

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